Avery scrolled through the texts and found a link to Forbes magazine’s 2019 list of wealthiest Americans. The Ratcliff clan held several spots. Natalie Ratcliff’s husband, Don, was worth $1.4 billion and the posh apartment at One 57 suddenly made more sense to Avery. Natalie’s father-in-law, and the longtime CEO of Ratcliff Enterprises, held a healthy $3.5 billion net worth. Avery looked up from her phone, took a sip of coffee, and contemplated her far-fetched idea about Natalie Ratcliff and her friend, Victoria Ford. As she mulled the possibilities and worked to connect the dots, she spotted Walt walking along the sidewalk toward the entrance of the restaurant. Out of his running shorts and sweaty shirt, he wore khakis and a dressed-up T-shirt. He had the build of a man who kept himself in shape, and she noticed again how attractive he was. Not for the first time this weekend, Avery wondered what the hell she was doing.
“I’m sorry?” the waitress asked.
Avery, suddenly aware that she had spoken her thoughts aloud, cleared her throat. “Oh, nothing. Sorry. Actually”—Avery turned over the coffee mug opposite her—“my . . . breakfast mate just arrived.”
Breakfast mate?
The waitress smiled and poured from a carafe of coffee she carried. Avery emptied two cream containers into Walt’s coffee and stirred as her mind continued to run. She had come to New York to procure a falsified passport from the man she had been put in touch with named André. The only person—she was told—who could be trusted for such a task. André didn’t have the greatest bedside manner, Avery had been warned, but she should trust him explicitly, and listen to anything he had to tell her. She had come to New York under the ruse of chasing the story of Victoria Ford. Both projects were now in full swing and would command much of her concentration. And yet here she was, starting a relationship with a man who lived in Jamaica and who came back to New York once a year to exorcise the demons that still haunted him from a previous relationship. If there was ever a playbook for failure, Avery was following it. Still, she couldn’t stop images from the previous night from flashing in her mind. She quickly shook the memories away as she watched Walt walk onto the outdoor patio. He smiled when he spotted her.
As he sat down across from her, Avery removed the spoon from his coffee mug. “Two creams, no sugar,” she said.
Walt’s face carried a curious look. “Good guess. But what if I took my coffee black?”
“You don’t.”
Walt looked at her with a creased forehead.
“It’s a weird thing with me. I pay attention to other people’s coffee habits. I saw two empty creams on the coffee bar in your hotel room on Saturday. Sugars were untouched.”
Walt slowly nodded. “Very creepy, but I sort of like it.”
The waitress came and they ordered breakfast.
“Streets are getting full,” Walt said, looking at the people who walked past the outdoor café, and the traffic in the street.
“I know. It’s sort of sad. The city sort of felt like it belonged to just the two of us for the last couple of days. Now everyone’s coming back to intrude.”
“We accomplished a lot. And now that our weekend is over, we need to figure out where we go from here. This is your project, Avery. I just agreed to provide access to the case files. But we’ve poked some serious holes in the investigation, and now I feel an obligation to do more. I want to reach out to some people and discuss what we’ve found. I’m not sure where that might lead, but the Cameron Young case is technically still open. A district attorney or a congressman or a senator somewhere might care enough to put some resources into it. I can work my contacts and see if anyone is willing to listen.”
“That would be great. I appreciate anything you can do. And Emma Kind will be thrilled. But despite everything we’ve uncovered this weekend, I can’t get past the fact that Victoria’s blood was found at the scene. No matter how many holes we poke in the investigation, or how many other potential suspects we come up with, her blood is a hard obstacle to overcome. Whether we try to get the case reopened, or if I just cover it on American Events, the blood is an issue.
“I spoke with Livia Cutty yesterday morning to ask about the science behind DNA evidence. She said that if the blood at the crime scene matched the DNA sample taken from Victoria’s mouth swab, it’s her blood. One hundred percent, or very close to it. So we might be able to prove that Victoria didn’t cut herself with the knife, but that doesn’t disprove that the blood at the scene belonged to her.”
“You know,” Walt said, “I was suspicious this weekend, but I’m convinced this morning. There’s something we’re missing, and I think I know someone who might be able to help us find it.”
“Who?”
“Uh, let’s call him an old friend. I tracked him down and he’s agreed to meet me. I’m heading there after breakfast.”
“About the blood?”
“And a couple other things. Let’s chase our leads for a couple of days and touch base later in the week? See what we each come up with?”
“Perfect,” Avery said. She needed a little time and space over the next couple of days. In addition to her suspicions about Victoria Ford and what she had just read about Natalie Ratcliff’s family, she needed to head back to Brooklyn to see if André had come through on the passport.
After breakfast, she allowed Walt to walk her back to her hotel. Although she couldn’t identify what it was, something felt different. Maybe it was the slowly filling sidewalks and the sense that the mass of people coming back to the city were stealing the tranquility she had found over the last couple of days. Or maybe it was the uncertainty about how she and Walt would continue after they finished working together.
Whatever it was, she felt uneasy after she kissed Walt good-bye and walked into the Lowell. She stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the eighth floor. As she waited for the doors to close, Avery saw Walt on the sidewalk outside. He lifted a hand and waved to her just as the elevator doors came together and reflected her image back at her. An eerie feeling rippled from the pit of her stomach, strange and foreign. She tried to chalk it up to the reality that their weekend was over. An hour later, though, she still couldn’t suppress the feeling that something was wrong.
CHAPTER 52
Manhattan, NY Monday, July 5, 2021
WALT DROVE THROUGH THE QUEENS-MIDTOWN TUNNEL AND ACROSS the East River. Forest Hills was a small community in Queens where he had tracked down the man he was looking for. Walt was not only surprised that Dr. Jarrod Lockard—the pathologist who performed the autopsy on Cameron Young—remembered him, but that the doctor was eager to meet. Twenty years before, Jarrod Lockard was known as the Wizard for his ability to take apart a corpse and magically find the clues it left behind. Walt imagined the doctor now, two decades later, as a stooped-over elderly man who lived alone, never able to marry because so many of his days had been spent so close to death that meaningful connections to the living were impossible. The pit of Walt’s gut buzzed with nervous butterflies at the prospect of seeing the Wizard after so many years, but he could think of no one else who could better answer the question he had formed while reviewing the lost Cameron Young files.